Donny Dominico
by Airon Kennell
Summary: ABANDONDED. Because I'm lazy and out of ideas.
1. Bubblegum

**Hallo everybody! This is my first ever fanfiction. I'm hoping this will go well.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10. Man of Action does. If I did, the characters would change clothes more often.**

Donny sat on the bench outside the candy shop and wiped the tears from her cheeks. How could he abandon her like that? And without any kind of warning. Stupid Kevin had left for quarters to put in the bubblegum machine and never come back. She was never going to forgive him for that. Now she was alone at the mall; how did she get into this mess?

Earlier That Day:

"Donny!" She waved a half-hearted smack in the general direction of Kevin's voice. "Donny, wake up! Mom says we can walk to the mall. Don't you wanna go to the candy store?"

Donny shot up out of her sleeping bag, knocking her head on Kevin's in the process. "Ow! Candy? When? What's for breakfast? Can we have waffles?"

"Slow down! I dunno any of that stuff!" Kevin blew his shaggy black hair out of his eyes. "Just go ask my mom. She wanted me to get you up to eat."

"Oh, okay. I'll be there in a minute, I'm gonna change outta my PJs," she undid the zipper of her sleeping bag and crawled out onto the floor of Kevin's bedroom. When she stood up, her baggy sleep shirt reached her knees, covering her plaid pajama shorts. "Go find out what's for breakfast, Kev, I'll be there in a minute."

"'Kay," Kevin scrambled up from the floor and headed out the door, closing it behind him. He was already dressed; he had on his favorite cargo shorts and a black tank top with ripped sleeves.

Donny grabbed her big green duffel bag out from under Kevin's bed. Last night she'd spent the night at his house. Most parents wouldn't want their daughter to stay over at a boy's house – especially a boy like Kevin – but the two of them had known each other practically since they were born. After eleven years of friendship, both of their moms were okay with the sleepovers.

She unzipped the bag and rummaged around her dirty clothes from the day before and found the blue jean skirt and black and blue striped t-shirt she'd packed for today. Once changed, she grabbed her hairbrush and headed for the dresser mirror, where she put her waist-length, white-blonde hair into sloppy pigtails. Then she stuck her tongue out at her reflection, smiled, and headed to the kitchen.

"Morning, sunshine," Mrs. Levin smiled at her when she walked in.

"Morning," Donny sat down at the table next to Kevin and watched as his mom stirred up pancake batter. "Waffles or pancakes?"

"Pancakes," Kevin answered for her. "And she's even makin' bacon!"

"Yum! Mrs. Levin, Kevin said you said we could go to the mall and get candy. Did you? Or did he just say that so I'd get up?" Donny moved to sit on her knees in the chair, fixing a hazel stare on the back of Mrs. Levin's head.

She laughed. "Yes, I said you two could go to the mall. I'll even give you a little money for candy. Now, who wants the first pancakes?"

"I DO!" Kevin stuck his hand in the air in excitement. His mom giggled, and Donny gave him a surprised 'hey!' look.

"Dude," she watched as his mom put the plate of pancakes in front of him. "Were you hungry?"

Kevin grinned sheepishly and blushed, "Uh-huh." Then he picked up his fork and dug in.

Just as Donny's pancakes got done, the bacon finished frying. Mrs. Levin gave Kevin his two pieces, then put Donny's pancakes and bacon on a plate and handed it to her. Donny followed Kevin's lead and stuffed her face.

After breakfast, Kevin and Donny set out for the mall. They walked from Kevin's place to the mall; as native New Yorkers, they weren't worried about street safety. Once they reached the mall, they headed straight for the arcade, planning on hitting the candy shop when their pancakes digested.

Two hours later, they had played through almost all of the cash Mrs. Levin had given them. When Kevin checked his pocket, his black eyes got big: they had five dollars left out of thirty bucks.

He reached one hand out and tugged on the back of Donny's shirt. "Um, we're almost outta money. We should go get candy now."

"'Kay. Why don't you just get our money back? You know, use your amazing Osmosian skills and make the games give back our quarters." She let an aggravated noise out as the screen flashed 'GAME OVER' in red and white.

"'Cause I don't wanna," he answered bluntly. "Come on, let's go to the candy store." Kevin grabbed her wrist and dragged her towards the door. She squeaked in protest, but followed him out anyway.

"Let go, Kevin, I can walk," Donny gave him a look, and he released his hold on her wrist. Then Donny's face broke into a grin, "Race you!"

Kevin watched, surprised, as Donny took off running for the escalator. He was over it a millisecond later, though, and he sprinted after her. He reached the candy shop not two seconds after her, but she was already doing a victory dance.

They spent the next few minutes picking out what kind of candy they wanted to get. For five dollars, they could get two bags and fill them with candy; hers was filled with chocolates and gummi worms, and his had a little bit of everything in it.

Five bucks later, they were sitting on the bench outside of the shop and eating their candy. That was when Donny spotted the gumball machine. She smacked Kevin's arm, and he turned around and looked at her.

"I wanna gumball," she said.

"We're outta money," he replied.

"So go get some."

"I don't wanna."

"Sure you do. Go get me some quarters."

"No."

"Please," she gave him puppy dog eyes.

"Fine. I'll be right back," he tossed his empty bag and headed back towards the arcade.

"If you don't come back, I'll never forgive you," Donny feigned seriousness.

"Right, okay. See you in a minute," he called as he walked off.

The back of his head of black hair would be the last she saw of him for six years.

**Okay! Whether you liked it or not – REVIEW! I want to know what you thought, so I can make the next chapter better. And maybe longer, too; that one was short.**


	2. Punch in the Face

**Chapter Two! Yay! I'm skipping to the Ultimate Alien timeline for the rest of the story; I promise the last chapter is the only one where they're eleven.**

**Reviews make me so happy! I've only got three, but I feel so loved. ^3^**

**Disclaimer: Man of Action owns Ben 10. Kevin would kiss Gwen more often if I owned the show.**

Donny found Kevin again by watching TV. It was entirely by chance that she flipped past the re-run of the interview with some teenager and spotted Kevin in the background. The interview was inside a smoothie shop in some town called Bellwood; she'd never heard of the place.

She reached over to the coffee table and grabbed a Post-It pad and a pen, and wrote down whatever she could get from the little interview. She got the name of the town, the name of the shop – Mr. Smoothie, and the name of the brunette teen being interviewed (Ben something or other). She then watched with interest as the Forever Knights barged in, got their butts kicked, and managed to teleport away with a smoothie machine despite the three super-powered teens' best efforts. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the armor-clad men; she was familiar with _them_.

Donny wasn't sure how she knew that the dark teen in the background had been Kevin. After all, she hadn't seen him since he was eleven years old. Of course, his hair style was pretty much the same, and his powers were the right ones, but this guy was different from the scrawny kid she'd known. He was really muscular, for one thing. Still, she was sure it was him.

Next, she found the laptop (buried under dirty clothes in her bedroom floor) and Googled the Mr. Smoothie in Bellwood. Once she'd found it on the map, she pulled up the street view and then went to grab a bag full of things she thought she might need: her driver's license, some cash, her cell phone, and her iPod. She even grabbed a change of clothes – just in case. After all, you never know.

Satisfied with her bag full of random objects, she headed out the door and yelled, "BANE!"

Bane was the name of her… well, she called him her dog. In fact, Bane was one of a large, canine-like alien species that were known as Deathstalkers. Donny had rescued Bane from a group of alien traders on their way to meet some Knights a couple of years ago. Despite what she called him, Bane was nowhere near looking like a dog. He had a thick mane of dark brown fur that turned into spikes that trailed down his back until they met his tail, which was barbed at the end and bare like a rat's. He had big, sharp, yellow teeth and he had a tendency to drool everywhere; also, he was about five feet tall at the shoulder.

He came bounding up at Donny's call, and proceeded to try to lick her face. There really isn't much you can do when a giant dog-thing starts licking you in the face. Donny flailed around a bit and wiped off as much slobber as she could before scratching Bane's ears.

"Are you ready for a trip, buddy?" She petted him another minute before taking hold of his leather collar and hoisting herself up onto his back. "Okay, to Bellwood, then." She stretched out a hand and opened a rift in the time-stream continuum.

Over the last four years, Donny had developed her own powers. She had discovered that she had the ability to open up little pocket dimensions in the time-stream continuum. Through these dimensions, she could travel to anywhere she wanted to go – so long as she already knew the destination. She could also reach through the little portals and take a coke directly out of the fridge while sitting in the living room. Her powers got most of their use this way.

She directed Bane through the red-purple portal with one destination in mind: Mr. Smoothie.

As it turned out, the attack on the smoothie shop had taken place over a week ago, and Donny's target was nowhere to be seen. The little building was apparently a popular hangout for the local kids, though. All of which started running when a giant vortex opened up in the middle of the parking lot and a very large monster with a girl on its back leapt through and landed on a nearby table.

A very disgruntled Donny dismounted her dog and headed inside the shop. She wandered up to the counter, behind which was a totally unbothered cashier; he had seen far worse things land in that parking lot over the last year. He watched, bored, as she looked at the menu.

"Um," she started, "I'd like a strawberry banana smoothie, please."

"That'll be three twenty-four," he replied.

She rummaged in her bag until she found her wallet, then handed the guy four dollars. Then she looked up at him and nonchalantly asked, "Do you know where I could find Kevin Levin?"

The cashier looked up, startled. "Uh, usually he's at his garage across town. Why do you ask?" He handed her smoothie to her.

"I'm an old friend," she crammed her change into the pocket of her skinny jeans and sipped her smoothie. "I thought I'd stop by and say hello."

"Oh, okay. Look for the green Challenger with the black racing stripes. That's his car," he informed her.

"Thanks," Donny left the shop and went back to Bane, who was growling at the nearby teenagers. She thumped him on the nose, "Be nice."

Remounting Bane, Donny drank another big gulp of smoothie. It was delicious; she could see why it was so popular. They spent the next few minutes searching for the green Challenger. Donny finally spotted it in front of a building that was definitely a garage. Finishing her smoothie, she pointed it out to Bane and told him to head over there.

The last thing Kevin was expecting to happen today was for his old friend to burst into his garage and give him a black eye. However, that was exactly how things went.

The garage was open to the street, meaning that Donny had a clear view of Kevin just a couple of seconds before he, Gwen, or Ben could spot the giant Deathstalker in the driveway. That meant that she had a good lead when Bane launched safely over the Challenger and landed in front of the three startled teens.

The lead was important, as it gave her time to yell "KEVIN ETHAN LEVIN!" before jumping off of Bane and punching Kevin in the face.

Gwen and Ben immediately got into fighting positions and started yelling at the intruder.

"Hey! Who do you think you are?" Ben raised one hand over the Ultimatrix, prepared to transform into Humongosaur if he needed to.

Gwen's hands glowed with pink energy, "What's your problem? You don't just randomly attack people like that! Especially with no reason!" Although it did occur to her that with Kevin, there was very likely a good reason.

Donny ignored them; they weren't important right now. Instead she focused on Kevin, who was looking somewhat bewildered. "You left me! Without any warning! I thought you were DEAD, Kevin! What happened when you left, huh? Why didn't you come back?" She was practically screaming now.

He just looked at her for a few seconds, then said, dumbfounded, "…Donny? Is that you?"

"Yes it's me! Who ELSE have you abandoned at a bubblegum machine in the last six years?" She put both of her hands on her hips.

She watched Kevin's dark eyes travel up and down her body, taking in the beat-up sneakers, the dark blue jeans, and the black spaghetti strap top. They stopped when they reached her short, boyish haircut. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but he was interrupted by Gwen.

"Kevin," she started, "You know this girl?"

He nodded, "Me and her were best friends when we were kids."

Ben looked from Donny to Kevin. "So who is she?"

"_I_ am Chardonnay Dominico, but you can call me Donny," Donny answered for him. "And this –" she gestured to Bane, who had decided to lay in the floor, "– is Bane, my dog."

"Yeah," Kevin mumbled a bit uselessly. Donny noticed, a bit satisfactorily, that his eye was beginning to turn a lovely shade of violet.

"Your _dog_?" Gwen arched one red eyebrow in disbelief.

"Deathstalker, actually, but it's a close enough description. Bane's just a big puppy, really," Donny relaxed a little and walked over to the aforementioned animal. She absentmindedly began scratching his head, which made him start thumping his barbed tail on the concrete floor.

"Wait, you keep a _Deathstalker_ as a pet? How'd you even _get_ him?" Ben cast a wary glance in her direction.

Donny smiled proudly, "I rescued him from traders a couple of years ago. He was on his way to being target practice for the Forever Knights. Now I'm gonna ask the questions, yeah?" She glared at Kevin. "So? Got an explanation for why you randomly disappeared, never to return?"

"I, um, met Ben?" he scratched the back of his head nervously.

"Him?" Donny nodded toward the little brunette in green.

"Yeah. We ran into each other at the arcade, and it's kinda a long story from there," he pointedly refused to meet her gaze.

"I've got a lot of time," she sat next to Bane and propped up on his side, picking up and sipping her forgotten smoothie. When Ben spotted the familiar cup, his eyes got big.

Kevin then explained as quickly as he could about his life after meeting Ben (with a fair amount of input from his two companions), including becoming a monster twice and becoming a criminal. He smiled hugely when he told her about Gwen and his car. His story took a good half hour to tell, and ended with the latest exploits of Aggregor, the evil Osmosian. At the end of his tale, Kevin looked up at Donny, "So, what happened to you?"

"Not much," Donny shrugged. "I got some powers, saved Bane, and got into some trouble of my own."

Gwen had come up with a question of her own. "How did you find Kevin again? Come to think of it, how did you get to Bellwood? You can't have ridden your dog all the way here."

"I saw him on TV this morning. In the background of an interview with Ben, actually, at that smoothie shop in town," she looked over at Kevin and winced. "Sorry 'bout the black eye, Kev."

"Nah, don't worry 'bout it," he moved from where he'd propped against his car, "I kinda deserved it."

Ben looked at Donny, "But how did you get here? I mean, I'm on TV all the time, so I get that, but how did you get here in less than one morning?"

"Easy," Donny stretched on hand out in front of her and waved downward, opening a small portal. She stuck her hand through it, and it appeared across the room and behind Kevin's head. She thumped him and waved when he turned to see what it was. "I did that, except from home to Mr. Smoothie. It only works with destinations I know; I can't just pop over to Pluto for an afternoon visit or anything."

"Cool," Ben vaguely wondered how much easier fighting aliens would be if you could just dump them into empty space. He wouldn't ever do that, of course, but he figured it'd be like a cheat code for real life. He mostly focused on smoothies. Donny had said 'Mr. Smoothie' and now he was hungry. "Speaking of, who wants to go to Mr. Smoothie?"

"Ben, you always want to go to Mr. Smoothie," Gwen looked over at him; he just gave her a goofy grin in return.

Kevin stretched his arms, and Donny and Gwen both noticed his muscles flexing as he did. You couldn't be a teenage girl and not notice. He dug his keys out of his pocket and said, "Okay, but I'm driving. I refuse to ride in the backseat of Ben's car again."

Ben shot off of the counter he'd been sitting on and threw his arms in the air. "YEAH! I get a smoothie! I want asparagus and orange juice!"

"Ew, gross," Donny made an 'ick' face, earning herself a funny look from Gwen.

"You'll get used to it; he's had much worse than asparagus and orange juice," she told her. Donny looked horrified. "Aren't you coming? You can ride in the back with Ben. Ben, scoot over," she instructed her cousin.

"'Kay," Donny stood up and turned to face Bane. "Stay. Put."

He whined and laid his ears back. Donny whirled on one foot and ran to join Ben in the backseat of Kevin's car. Once she was in and the door was closed, Kevin cranked up and started backing out of the driveway.

Then Ben's pocket started beeping. He took out his cell phone and put it to his ear, "Hello? Oh, hi Grandpa! What? Where? Okay, we'll get to it right away." He hung up and looked towards Gwen and Kevin. "That was Grandpa Max."

"So we gathered," Gwen cut him off, earning herself an acidic green glare from the brunette.

"Anyway, he says that the Forever Knights are meeting some dealers for an arms deal. A Level Five arms deal. It's out in the desert."

The tires screeched as Kevin turned the car around, and Donny held on for dear life.


	3. Souvenir

**Hallo again! Thanks for all the reviews, I love you guys, I really do. Now to beat up Forever Knights!**

**Disclaimer: Man of Action owns Ben 10. If I owned it, Kevin would've died laughing when Ben said "One of my balls just fell off" in **_**Computer Games**_**.**

Donny discovered very quickly that Kevin drove like a maniac. It was scary how fast he went, actually; she was even beginning to get a little carsick when he finally stopped the car with a squeal of the brakes. As soon as the Challenger stopped moving, Donny bolted out of the car and into the afternoon heat of the desert.

"Holy crap, Kevin, you should be in jail for your driving!" Donny gave him her best 'I'm-appalled' look.

"Remind me later and I'll show you my speeding ticket collection," was the only reply she got from him.

The Forever Knights were in the middle of their weapons deal when the team arrived. They could see the transaction from behind a very large, well-placed rock. The Knights' liaisons were scary-looking, reddish colored aliens with large, pointy rocks protruding from their backs and lizard-like faces. They were dealing what appeared to be blasters the size of rats, which Donny didn't think of as threatening until one of the reddish aliens gave a demonstrative blast that blew the rock they were hiding behind into smithereens. Then the little guns were _very_ threatening.

Of course, as soon as the rock was blown away, the group found themselves in plain view of the Knights and the rock aliens. One of the Knights spotted Ben's green jacket and shouted, "It's Tennyson! Get 'im!"

At which point Ben slammed his hand down on the Ultimatrix, and, with a flash of green, turned into Big Chill. "Big Chill," he called out the name for good measure.

Kevin touched the ground and absorbed the stone, then ran into the group of aliens and started throwing punches. Gwen began shooting pink circles at the Knights, who by now had drawn their swords and were beginning to attack the three teens. Donny was feeling somewhat useless at this point, and decided that the safest choice would be to call in Bane.

She did exactly that. Donny waved her right hand behind her and opened a portal, and then she called, "BANE!"

The Deathstalker leapt through the red vortex and turned two large red eyes on Donny for instructions.

Donny pointed at the enemies and said, "Sick 'em."

Bane jumped into the frenzy and began clawing and biting at the rock aliens, who, as it turned out, could cover their arms in the rock-like material on their backs. The dog would yelp in pain whenever one of the aliens would hit him, but the aliens soon learned that that particular action resulted in being bitten. Bane had a vicious bite, with four large yellowed canines built to tear flesh.

Ben was freezing Knights and aliens alike from the air, and both parties were shooting at him with the little blasters. Big Chill just turned intangible and let them shoot.

Gwen wrapped her mana around several of the Knights and threw them a couple of hundred yards away, where they stayed down. When one of the rock aliens tried to attack her, she put up a shield and Kevin ran in from nowhere and swung an uppercut that could shatter bones with an arm morphed into a sledgehammer.

Donny cowered faithfully behind the remnants of the big rock. A couple of the Knights spotted her trying to look invisible and thought she looked like an easy target. Donny saw them coming and dashed out from behind the rock and towards the main fight, where she scavenged for dropped weapons. She had been hoping to find a blaster, but could only find a downed Knight to steal a sword off of. With one hard pull, the Knight's belt broke and the hilt came away, allowing her to pull the sword out of its scabbard.

It was surprisingly light in her hand. Donny didn't know squat about sword fighting, but she told herself that anyone waving a pointy metal object around was dangerous. She faced a Knight and brought the blade down as hard as she could, screaming the whole time. Donny was surprised when the armor-clad man sunk to the ground, his helmet still clanging where she'd hit him broadside in the head.

"I knocked one out!" Donny grinned ear to ear in triumph. Looking around, there were only a few Knights out of commission. There didn't appear to be as many as she'd originally thought, but they were hard to take down inside of that armor.

A good many of them were at least partially frozen. The Knights continued to put up an okay fight, but the rock aliens had apparently had enough. One of the bigger ones – the leader, Donny guessed – waved to the others, grabbed a large black suitcase off of the ground, and headed for what Donny had thought was a garbage truck. When the rock aliens loaded up and flew away in it, she realized that it was a small spaceship.

When the Knights saw that their allies had bailed, they began scrambling to gather as many blasters as possible. One of them insisted on continuing to try to fight Kevin, only to have his suit shaken by a well-placed punch.

"Knights, fall back!" one of the men called out in a British accent, waving one silver arm from over near the blasters. The Knights turned tail and ran, and when they'd all gotten as close to the guy who'd waved as they possibly could, they teleported away.

Well, most of them did. Bane still had one in his mouth, and he seemed to think that the armor was a chew toy. The Knight was screaming his head off.

"Drop it!" Donny scolded the Deathstalker lightly, and he dropped him. A second later, one of the other Knights teleported in, grabbed his friend, and teleported away again.

"It really stinks when they teleport," Gwen relaxed and walked over to Kevin, who let his stone armor go.

"Yeah," he agreed. "It'd be nice to know who those aliens were. I've never seen those guns before. They weren't real strong, but they were definitely nice."

Big Chill landed and flashed green again, turning back to Ben. "That was useless. I can't believe we let the _Forever Knights _get away."

"I wonder what they're up to," Gwen wondered aloud. "It's not like the Knights to not have a plan for weapons like that."

"Who cares?" Kevin began walking back towards his car. "The Knights are easy. They're, like, _never_ a threat."

"Kevin's right," Ben followed behind him. He looked at his belly when his stomach started growling. "Hey, can we go to Mr. Smoothie now?"

Donny decided that now was the time to input something. "I want real food. I haven't eaten anything today besides waffles and a strawberry-banana smoothie." She leaned over and picked up the scabbard that the sword had come from. It had two belt loops on one side so you could easily attach it to your pants. She put the sword back into it and ran to catch up to the others; Bane followed in her wake.

"Are you going to keep that?" Gwen eyed the scabbard in Donny's hand.

"Yep," she answered, "It'll be my souvenir from my first fight with you guys."

"Uh-huh," was the only answer the redhead gave her.

Kevin unlocked the car and turned to look at the group behind him. He raised one eyebrow when he spotted Donny's 'souvenir,' but the he only said, "Don't cut anything in my car."

"Will do," she rolled her eyes and hopped into the backseat.

"Hey, wait a minute," at the sound of Kevin's voice, Donny stuck her head back out. "What about Bane? He can't follow us home on the highway, someone would freak out."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry Bane, you've gotta go back to the garage," she waved a portal in front of the car door, and giggled when Kevin's eyes widened as Bane jumped in the direction of his car, only to disappear into thin air. "Okay, all taken care of. Can we please go eat something now? It's like three in the afternoon and I'm starving."

"Me too," Gwen got in the passenger's seat. "Come on, Ben. I'm sure Kevin will drive you by Mr. Smoothie's after we get some real food."

"Will not," Kevin got in and closed the door. "He can drive himself. I didn't build him a car for nothing, did I, Benji?"

"Huh? Can't we just stop there on the way to my house?" Ben buckled in and shut his door; Kevin took this as a 'go' signal and gunned the engine.

"Why don't you go after? You can take Julie," Gwen suggested.

"Okay, fine," the brunette gave up quickly, knowing that he still owed Julie for all the time he had spent with Jennifer Nocturne.

"Julie's your girlfriend?" Donny decided to be polite.

"Yeah. She's great, she even knew about my watch _before_ I got to be famous," Ben smiled, and Donny could tell that he really did like this Julie person.

Ben had brought up another subject Donny was curious about. "How did your secret get out anyway?"

"Uh…" the younger boy hesitated just long enough for Kevin to answer for him.

"Some kid found video of Ben's aliens on the 'net and put together what Ben could do based on a picture of him wearing the Omnitrix," Kevin left out the fact that he had called him a 'mastermind' at first.

Then everyone had to explain why they had told her the thing Ben had on was an Ultimatrix, but that he'd been wearing something called an 'Omnitrix' in the picture. They arrived at a fast food place before Donny had fully grasped the idea, but she just let it drop.

Two chicken meals and three cheeseburgers later, they were on their way to drop Ben off at his house so that he could surprise Julie with a trip to his favorite smoothie shop. Gwen's parents had called her wanting her home for some reason or other (Donny fell asleep in the car), so by five o' clock it was down to just Kevin and Donny.

"Now what?" Donny looked over at Kevin; she'd moved to the passenger seat when they'd dropped Gwen off.

"We catch up," Kevin pressed his foot to the gas, breaking into a wide smile when the speedometer hit ninety miles per hour.

**I wrote all of this in one night. It's nearly midnight now. Ugh. Anyway… REVIEW! 'Cause it makes me feel loved. And when I feel loved, I feel like writing.**

**Rawrz. Good night.**


	4. Catching Up

**I am back again, sorry for the slow update! I can't believe how many hits I've gotten on this! I'm feeling so very loved!**

**Yes, my story is riddled with plot holes. Because I was too lazy to go watch the original episodes, and I really just don't care. I think Kevin could totally have pulled all of that off behind his mom's back; he's just that good.**

**Once again, Man of Action owns Ben 10, though I'd really like to.**

"Six years is a lot for one evening," Donny looked sideways at Kevin.

"Who says we'll do it in one evening?" he turned to look at her. "_You're_ not gonna leave this time, are you?"

"Of course not; I wouldn't have come if I didn't plan to stick around and bother you for a while," she grinned and mock-punched him in the arm. "So where are we going?"

"The pier. I figured we'd start off at twelve, yeah?" Kevin looked totally serious, and it took her a minute to realize that he meant they would start at twelve years old.

"Okay. But you have to show me your speeding ticket collection, 'cause you said you would," she couldn't wait to see what Kevin had cooked up for 'catching up.'

He turned his head and nodded toward the dash. "Pop that open."

Donny followed his direction and opened the compartment, only to have five or six speeding tickets fall into her lap. There were too many yellow sheets of paper to count stuffed into the small space in the dash; she gaped. "Jeez, Kev, it's amazing nobody's dead because of you."

"I'm offended by that," he responded. "I drive responsibly."

"At a hundred and twenty miles an hour," she stuffed the tickets down and closed the compartment, laughing when Kevin pretended to look offended.

At over a hundred miles an hour, it doesn't take long to get where you're going. Kevin turned into a parking lot marked 'PIER PARKING' and swung into a spot. Donny hadn't even realized that they'd reached a place with water enough to put a pier in.

"That was a really short ride. Or was it? I fear I'll never know for your driving." Donny put on an 'I-don't-mean-what-I-say' voice.

Kevin ignored her and got out of the car; she wasn't far behind him. He locked the Challenger and looked up at Donny, obsidian eyes sparkling with some evil plan or other. "Let's go ride all the rides."

She grinned from ear to ear, "Okay, lead the way."

"Ferris wheel or roller coaster first?" He took off toward the pier, and Donny had to speed up to keep up with his long strides.

"Everything else sucks if you ride the roller coaster first. Let's do the whirly ride. They do have one here, right?" She figured it would, most places like this did. "And slow down; we are only twelve."

He laughed and slowed his pace for her. When they got to the main pier, Kevin bought their tickets.

"Where do you get money? I can't find a job for the life of me," she inquired as he stuffed his wallet away.

"Tech deals," Kevin gave her no further enlightenment. She didn't really think anything of it; after all, it was Kevin. As far as she remembered, he'd never been prone to detailed responses.

"Right. I need a job," she moped, but brightened when she spotted the whirly ride – called 'The Vortex' here. Donny grabbed hold of his hand and started dragging him toward it, "Come on, I love these things!"

Kevin allowed her to pull him through the line. As it turned out, Donny's 'whirly ride' was one of those rides where you sit in a box and get slung around and around for a whole sixty seconds. He didn't really see the thrill in it, but they were supposed to be kids at the moment.

Racing ahead, Donny picked out one of the red-and-blue boxes and sat on the outside edge. Kevin got to spend the entirety of the ride slammed up against her as she laughed hysterically. The ride ended with a very squished but happy Donny and a thoroughly bored Kevin.

"Let's go on the roller coaster," he cast a longing gaze on what was probably the only fun ride on the pier.

"Not yet! We have to save that for last, remember? It was only five minutes ago when I said it." She started looking around for a potential ride. "We can do bumper cars. Then we'll get a snack, and then ride the coaster, then the Ferris wheel."

"Uh-huh, whatever. You know, I'm really good at that ring toss game," Kevin jabbed a thumb in the direction of the brightly lit booths.

"And I can win the claw machine," she informed him. "To the bumper cars!"

Kevin was really, really awesome at bumper cars. He managed to bump all of the other cars around the little track without ever getting stuck. Donny spent the whole time trying her best to get behind him and bump his car to no avail; he just laughed at her and swiveled around to send her rolling backwards.

Just as she had said, Donny followed bumper cars with snacks. Unlike she had said, Kevin decided that that would be a good time to play carnival games.

Munching on a soft pretzel, our blonde heroine watched her old friend win a guitar and a giant stuffed tiger at the ring toss game. He hadn't been lying when he said he was good at it.

A smug grin plastered on his face, he strode over to Donny with his prizes in hand. "Told you. Want the tiger?"

"Sure," he handed it to her. "Can you even play guitar?"

"No," Kevin slung the bright green instrument over one shoulder.

Donny heaved the oversized plush and started walking towards the entrance of the roller coaster. "If you can't play it, why'd you pick it out?"

"I dunno. It looked cool," he shrugged his broad shoulders. Donny rolled her eyes at him and got in line.

The coaster was called 'The Tornado' and it was wooden, which meant no loops. It did, however, have a ten-story S-drop at a fifty degree angle, which made up for the lacking loops. The pier wasn't too crowded that night, so the line was short; they got to the front of it in twenty minutes.

"Let's ride in the front," Kevin handed his useless green guitar over to the employee on the other side of the tracks and hopped in the front car. Donny sat down next to him and passed over her tiger. They buckled in and then had a lap bar lowered on top of their legs. The yellow-jacketed employees each held up a thumbs-up, and the coaster creaked to a start.

"… And now I start regretting that I got on," Donny grabbed the handle on the front of the car and looked straight forward. She always had second thoughts on the trip up the first drop.

Kevin laughed at her. "Look, you can see my car from here," he pointed below them, and when she looked, Donny really could see the green and black car far below them.

The car tilted over the edge of the drop and Donny whirled to face forward again and stretched her arms into the air, noticing that Kevin had done the same next to her. For a fraction of a second, they just hung there, but when the middle cars made it over the hump, the coaster took off. Donny screamed at the top of her lungs, loving every moment of the twisting, turning, shaking, creaking ride. On one of the downhill drops, she caught the flash of light that meant their picture had been taken. When the ride ended with a loud shriek of metal on metal, she looked over at Kevin…

… And started laughing. His shaggy black hair had blown backward and gotten stuck there. She wasn't the only one laughing, either. He was grinning at her, too, and she could only imagine what chaos her short blonde hair had decided to look like.

They got off of the ride and retrieved their prizes. "We have to stop and see our picture, 'kay?" Donny followed Kevin down the exit stairs.

"'Kay," he lead the way to the photo kiosk. Upon arrival, he pointed one callused finger at the first screen. "There's us."

The picture showed the two of them with their hands in the air and their hair blowing behind them, wide smiles adorning both of their faces.

Donny pulled twenty dollars out of her front pocket and declared, "I'm buying the keychain!" Five minutes later, she walked away with a little purple picture frame hanging from one of the belt loops on her pants.

"So, now what?" Kevin asked.

"Now we ride the Ferris wheel," she yawned. "Then we go home."

"Are you going back to New York?" he looked over at her.

Donny peeked at him from under the tiger she had propped on her head. "No, we don't live in New York any more. My dad got transferred last year, so now we live in Georgia."

"Big change," he commented.

"Nah," she shrugged, "It's really nice. I didn't know you could breathe air as fresh as we have in Cleveland."

"Cleveland? I thought that was in Ohio," he gave her a funny look when she burst out laughing at him.

"There's more than one!" Smiling at Kevin's thoughtless comment, she headed for the colorfully lit Ferris wheel. "And it really doesn't matter where I go, I can just come back through a portal tomorrow."

"True," Kevin adjusted his guitar strap and walked ahead of his blonde companion. Then he started running. "Race you!"

Donny stared after him with wide hazel eyes before running to catch up. "No fair! That guitar is way easier to carry than this tiger!"

As expected, Kevin won by a lot. He was grinning his signature grin when Donny got to the entrance of the line. "I win," he bragged.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," was the only response he received.

The Ferris wheel had the longest ride on the pier, but it still only took half an hour for them to load into a lime green seat. It turned out that you had to hold your things on this one, so they ended up squished into the tiger, which they had stuffed between them. The green guitar had been propped in the seat behind the giant plush.

The first couple of times the wheel moved, the two teens sat in silence. Donny was happy for the first quiet moment she'd had all day. It gave her time to think about what she should do now that she'd found Kevin again. This train of thought led her to her next question: "Hey, Kev? How come you didn't go back for me?"

He was silent for a few more moments before saying, "I told you already. I met Ben at the arcade and ended up an intergalactic criminal."

"I know that much. But why didn't you take me with you?" She was inching around her original conclusion, hoping that she wouldn't have to say it out loud.

She turned and looked over the stuffed tiger when she felt Kevin's dark gaze on her. His earthy eyes held hers as he asked his question, "You didn't think I forgot you, did you?"

Donny looked at the lap bar guiltily. "I managed to convince myself you had."

When she looked back up, Kevin was leaning in her direction, eyes smoking with intensity. "I would _never_ forget you. How could you think that?"

She fought the tears tugging at her eyes, willing them not to spill. Then she whispered, "I'd rather you forget me than leave me behind on purpose."

That comment led to an awkward silence. It stayed in place all the way to the top of the wheel, where both of them looked out and around the pier without meeting each other's eyes again.

Donny was about to tell Kevin that she could see his car again when his phone went off, breaking the tense quiet for her.

"What do you want, Ben?" Kevin answered harshly; he didn't much like it when the little brunette pest called because it was usually about Sumo Slammers or Mr. Smoothie. Ben really didn't have a life outside of fighting aliens. "Aliens again? ... Why don't you take care of it yourself, Tennyson, I'm busy. You can drive now for a reason. … If it hasn't got anything to do with the Knights or Aggregor I really don't care. … Fine, Benji, I'm coming. I'll be there in a little while. Tell Gwen what you want to."

Kevin flipped his phone shut grumpily, and Donny asked one last tentative question. "What did Ben want?"

"He says there are some aliens going haywire in town, and he wants me to come help him and Gwen beat 'em up," he looked down at the ground. "Ben'll just have to wait; we're kinda stuck up here."

"No we aren't," Donny waved one arm in front of them and ripped open a portal. Then she waved toward herself, and the reddish vortex swallowed the two teens and their prizes. It dropped them off in the front seats of Kevin's car. She shoved the guitar and tiger into the back seat and grabbed her bag and sword. Then she grinned at a surprised Kevin, "Ta-da!"

"Cool," was all he said before digging the key out of his pocket and cranking up. He pulled out of the parking lot and floored the gas pedal, headed back to Bellwood.

**Ha ha, I cheated the ending. Sorry about not posting for a week; I had VBS at my church. This week, however, I have no plans. So maybe I'll update a couple of times. It all depends on whether or not my creative juices are flowing. REVIEWS MAKE MY JUICES FLOW!**

**I love to hear from the people! Especially the ones with nice things to say! But I will take any flames with dignity, I promise.**


	5. Spider!

**Look: Chapter Five! Ta-da! This one's short, but it sets up the plot, sooooo… yeah. Anyways, read and review, people!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10. If I did, there would have been a new episode last week.**

Kevin's crazy driving got them to the scene of the attack in less than no time. Donny's eyes widened in horror when the alien turned out to be an enormous spider-like creature – like a spider, it was black and hairy with eight legs; unlike a spider, it had a maw with dual rows of four inch fangs dripping some sort of acid and its front two legs were tipped with three foot-long claws. It also had around a hundred eyes dotting its entire body – every one of them bright yellow.

The creature was surrounded by rubble from the buildings it had nearly demolished. There were also several overturned and crushed cars. Ben and Gwen were fighting the monster as best they could; Ben was in the form of Fourarms – throwing punches and warped metal pieces as hard as he could. Gwen was following his lead as best she could, using her mana to lift and throw destroyed vehicles at the alien arthropod. They were trying to squish the spider.

One important thing about Donny: she had always been terrified of spiders. There were two possible reactions to a situation involving one of the eight-legged fiends; she either screamed for someone to come kill it for her, or she violently attacked and killed it herself by very inhumane means. She had once washed one down the sink by squirting it with Clorox bleach.

This spider had her frozen in fear at the moment. For someone with arachnophobia, a huge alien spider like this was a living nightmare. She hadn't even noticed when Kevin had gotten out of the car (which he had parked a safe distance away) and run into battle. A few seconds after he had joined the frenzy, Donny closed her gaping mouth and chose to help with the squishing.

Ben was wondering vaguely if his no-kill policy applied to big alien bugs. He picked up a mangled Toyota truck and tossed it at the monster, which was crawling up the side of a nearby building. It moved just in time and the truck went flying into a fourth-story office building. "Oh, come on! I already have a bad rep 'cause of stuff like this!"

"Ben!" Gwen yelled, "Stop worrying about your reputation and squish this thing!" She hit it with her pink mana discs, causing it to screech and leap towards her. She screamed, and a concrete-clad Kevin hit the creature out of the way with a spiked fist.

That only made the spider angrier. It charged at Kevin, who dodged and hit it again, taking out one of its back legs; it didn't hinder it much, considering it had seven others to walk on. The spider didn't turn around to retaliate: it opened a couple of eyes on its back and shot webbing out of its butt, hitting its target and temporarily taking out Kevin. He turned one arm into a blade and started trying to cut his way out.

Ben threw and missed with another car. "Stop moving, you stupid spider!"

Donny ran in late, sword in hand. Looking around for something do to, she decided the weapon wouldn't help her out any and sheathed it. Instead, she opened a portal beneath a partially crushed bus. The exit opened up above the unsuspecting spider, and the bus dropped onto it. It didn't die, however, as Donny had hoped it would.

It tried to stand up, but the bus slowed it down. It was going to take the spider a few good heaves to throw off the vehicle. This gave Ben the opportunity to knock the alien arthropod out. With a loud "Hiiiii-ya!" he punched the spider with all four of his fists, and the bug's hairy body went limp. Every one of his big yellow eyes closed.

From a good forty feet away, Donny shouted, "Kill it!"

"No!" Ben responded. "What if it's, like, intelligent? I don't kill people!" He flashed green as he turned back into himself.

"It's not a person! It's a really big bug! Just squish it already!" she shuddered; spiders were awful.

Kevin finally cut his way out of the webbing. Wiping spider silk off of his shirt, he looked at Ben and asked, "What're we gonna do with it?"

"Squish it!" Donny put in her opinion again.

They ignored her.

"We should call the Plumbers. They'll know what to do with it," Gwen was pragmatic.

Ben agreed, "Okay, good plan." He pulled out his plumber's badge and made the call. From where she was standing, Donny couldn't hear his conversation with the Plumber on the other end of the line; she could, however, see his brows furrow and his face take on a worried look. When he finished he looked at his companions. "They said they'd take care of it."

"Good," Ben's redheaded cousin looked pleased. "Then why do you look so worried?"

"They also said that the Forever Knights have launched into space."

"What?" Donny, Kevin, and Gwen exclaimed simultaneously.

**That was really short, but the next one will be longer, I promise. I finally know what I'm doing with this, so hopefully it'll go faster from here.**

**REVIEW! Because it makes me happy!**

**I'm gonna go start Chapter Six! Just for you guys!**


	6. Call From Home

**Okay, I'm a really bad updater. Sorry; my priorities lie elsewhere. But I'm writing now, so that makes it all better! 8D**

**Disclaimer: MoA owns Ben 10. If I owned it, who knows when you'd get new episodes?**

"They're _in space_?" Gwen was incredulous.

"Why? What're they gonna do out there? Commandeer a military satellite?" Kevin barraged Ben with questions.

"I don't know; we're supposed to go see Grandpa Max. He'll tell us what's going on," Ben put his badge back into his pocket.

Donny only had one question: "Who's Grandpa Max?"

"He's Ben and Gwen's granddad, and a really important Plumber," Kevin answered before either of the cousins could.

"Ah," she nodded her understanding. "This means we're gonna have to follow the Knights into space, doesn't it?"

"Probably," Gwen confirmed. "But we go to other planets all the time; I bet the Knights won't get very far before we catch them." The redhead headed in the direction of the cars.

"That's great and all, but don't you people ever sleep? I'm exhausted, and I'd really like a shower and a change of clothes before launching into the vast emptiness of the universe," Donny informed them honestly. She'd never fought much of anything before, and now she'd been in two fights in one day; needless to say, she was ready for a nap - or possibly twelve hours of sleep.

Kevin and Ben laughed. Ben turned to look at her before saying, "No, we never, ever sleep. That's the price of being a hero. In fact, I haven't had a bath in a week."

"No wonder you smell," his cousin smiled.

The brunette glared at her. "I'm sure we can spare enough time to get a little sleep and clean up really quickly; that is, _after_ we go talk to Grandpa Max."

"Fair enough." The cars, Donny discovered, were color coordinated. She grinned and started giggling; effectively getting the attention of her three companions.

"What?" Ben looked puzzled.

"Your cars match! It's so cute!" she laughed a little more when she saw the boys' faces. "What? You didn't notice?"

"No," the younger teen pointed an accusing finger at his friend, "Besides, he made them!"

Donny stopped laughing. "If Kevin made them, then why do they match you?"

Gwen was interested now, "Yeah, Kevin, why do the cars color coordinate with Ben?"

The older teen blatantly ignored the questions. "Are we goin' to the Rustbucket or not?"

"Right," Ben nodded. "So who's riding with me?"

"I'm riding with Kevin," Gwen declared. "He is my boyfriend."

"Okay, I guess I'm riding with Ben," Donny dashed over to Kevin's Challenger and grabbed her bag out of the back seat. Then she went to Ben's car.

"See you at the Rustbucket," Ben waved at the other two and got into his car. Donny climbed into the passenger's seat and watched as Kevin and Gwen loaded up the other vehicle.

The ride to Ben's granddad's RV was informative. To be more specific, it was filled with Donny asking Ben all kinds of questions. She learned that Ben had found the Omnitrix when he was ten on vacation with his grandpa and cousin, his arch nemesis at the time was Vilgax, and he had taken the Ominitrix off for some time before putting it on again last year. Then he and Gwen had turned Kevin good and defeated aliens called Highbreed, and then Vilgax had tried to destroy him and he'd gotten the Ultimatrix. By the time they reached the trailer park, Ben knew what it was like to ride with himself: really annoying.

Ben parked his Miata in Max's yard; Kevin pulled up next to them. The four teens got out of the cars and headed for the door. Gwen noticed a very familiar expression on Ben's face; she wore it often herself when dealing with him.

"What's up, Ben?" she asked.

"Nothing. I just answered every question Donny could think of on the way over here," he shot a sideways look at the blonde, who blushed.

"Get a taste of your own medicine, Tennyson?" Kevin grinned and knocked on the door.

The door opened to reveal a stout, older man in a red Hawaiian shirt, "Hey, kids, come on in." He moved aside to let the four of them inside, raising a brow when Donny smiled shyly at him. "Who's your new friend?"

"She's an old friend of Kevin's. She gave him the black eye," Gwen told him. "Grandpa, meet Donny. Donny, this is our Grandpa Max."

"Nice to meet you," Donny extended a hand to shake, which Max took.

"You too," he smiled warmly at her. "You'll have to tell me all about that black eye of his once we get the Knights taken care of."

"Speaking of," Kevin interjected, "What are the Forever Knights doing in space?"

"Do you remember the dragon alien the Knights wanted you to slay?" Max sat at the table and looked at the group before him.

"Yeah, of course," Ben answered.

"Well, the Knights still intend to wipe out the dragons. The entire planet of dragons," he paused to let that sink in a bit before going on. "They let that arachnid alien loose as a distraction so that they could launch."

Donny shuddered reflexively. "Ew, spider."

Max gave her an odd look, then continued, "You need to follow them to the dragon's home planet. Kevin, is the Rustbucket II space ready?"

"I think so. I mean, yeah, it's ready. I just haven't done a test flight yet," he shrugged. "It should be fine."

"All the same, I think we should borrow Ship from Julie, just to be safe," Gwen cut him a sideways look.

"You don't trust me?" Kevin looked hurt.

"It's not that," his girlfriend started, "It's that we know Ship can handle long-distance space travel."

"Gwen's right," Ben interrupted before the two could start arguing. "I'll call Julie. That should give us some time to get cleaned up and rest."

"Alright, then. Let me know before you head out," Max waved them out the door.

Once loaded into Ben's Miata again, Donny asked another question of him, "Who's Julie?"

"My girlfriend," he answered.

Soon after, Donny fell asleep. The ride to Julie's passed in silence for Ben, who took the time to think about what he would do about the episodes of Sumo Slammers he was going to miss while in space. He knew he should record them, but would there be time?

Ben was pulled out of his reverie by the sound of a cell phone ringing. It was playing some guitar-heavy song or other, and it originated from Donny's pocket. He reached one hand over, very carefully, and poked her. She yelped and smacked his arm, then noticed her ringtone blaring in the quiet car.

Donny dug it out of her pocket and flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Donny?" She jumped when she recognized the voice.

"Hi, Mom," she sounded really guilty, if you asked Ben. "Um, I'm so sorry I didn't call you."

Ben could hear her mom yelling from across the car. It went something like, "Chardonnay Marie Dominico! How dare you run off and leave home without telling your father or me! You know better than that! We've been looking for you all day, young lady!"

"Sorry, Mom! I'm sorry! I should've called, but –" she jumped when her mom started yelling again.

"But nothing! There are no buts about this, Chardonnay, you are grounded! You get your butt home right now, young lady!" Even Ben winced at that one.

Donny had turned a lovely shade of scarlet, "Mom! I have a good reason!"

"You'd better!"

"I found Kevin! I mean, I saw him on TV, and I kind of used my powers, and now I'm with one of his friends. Um, and I kind of need to stay with them a while. 'Cause I'm all involved in a big alien battle and stuff," even Donny knew that sounded ridiculous.

"That is the worst excuse ever! Do you really expect me to believe that? Get home right now! If you're telling the truth, you'd better be able to prove it!"

"Y-yes, ma'am," she closed the phone when her mom hung up, and was surprised to find that she had been holding it a few inches from her ear. She cast a nervous glance in the direction of the driver. "How much of that did you hear, exactly?"

"Most of it. All of it," he avoided her gaze, but he could still see her wide hazel eyes out of the corner of his green ones. "Guess she's pretty mad, huh?"

"Pretty mad? She's livid!" Donny put her head in one hand. "Do you think my sword is enough proof?"

Ben started to say 'How should I know?' but then realized that that wouldn't help anything. Instead, he said, "Probably. It does have the Knights' insignia on it."

"Right," she sat back in her seat, trying to relax. "I'd head back right away, but I have to know where to find you guys again." Then something occurred to her. "Crap! Bane's still in the garage! Can I meet you all there in an hour?"

"Sure, I guess," Ben agreed. When he looked over next, Donny had transported out.

She reappeared at the garage, where Bane attacked her with his love. Once she managed to thwart his efforts to lick her to death, she apologized to him several times over. Then she ripped open another huge portal, and the two of them went through it to home.

Donny's mom was waiting for her on the front porch when she stepped into the yard. When she spotted her, she looked at Bane instead, "Bane, kennel up."

The Deathstalker nudged her, and then went to his bed in the garage.

Donny's mother was very, very angry. She was also very, very vocal about it.

Her mom's dark eyes burned with anger. "Chardonnay Marie Dominico, how dare you leave and not call! You are grounded until I decided you are trustworthy enough to go out again! You had better have a very good excuse, and I don't want to hear any more crazy stories, young lady."

"It isn't a story!" Donny defended. "I saw Kevin on TV with Ben 10; you know, the alien guy? I went to Bellwood to find him, and I did! Then I got caught up in a big fight – or two – and I lost track of time. I'm really sorry I didn't call, but I kind of need to clean up and go back to help."

"I'm sure they can handle themselves," her mom glared down at her. "I want you to head upstairs and take a shower, then go to bed. As I said before, you are grounded." Her long brown braid swung wide when she whirled around and headed back into the house.

Donny sighed and followed her inside.

She spent the next hour taking a long, hot relaxing shower and getting together things she thought she might need to go into space. By the end of the hour, she was dressed and ready to meet the others at the garage with Bane.

**Yay! Next chapter, we will launch into space!**

**Soooooo… REVIEW! 'Cause that makes meh happy!**


	7. Liftoff and Long Talks

**Hi! I've been gone awhile, huh? I apologize for the slow update. I went to the beach for a week, then I forgot for a week, and then the 'D' key stopped working. It's still a little iffy, to be honest with you.**

**Although I have to say that you guys deserve the late post. I had to wait weeks for one single review (thank you, Tiryn). So there.**

**Anyways – to space!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10. It belongs to Man of Action. Just in case you didn't already know.**

Donny stood in her room and stared at her reflection. She was all dressed up for space travel and Knight-fighting: dark skinny jeans, long-sleeved black T-shirt, and black boots she had borrowed from her neighbor Milo last week. She had thought that she would need them for horseback riding with her dad, but no such luck.

Satisfied with her outfit, she grabbed a jacket (space was cold, right?) and her bag, which still contained the change of clothes she had packed in it that morning. Funny, that seemed like forever ago. With a sigh, Donny opened up a portal and stepped through into her garage.

Bane greeted her happily with a great big lick to the face. Unable to stop the giant canine-like alien, Donny endured the spit attack with grace. Then she clambered onto the Deathstalker's back and opened a second portal.

When they crossed through that portal (quietly, so as not to alert Donny's mom), they found themselves in Kevin's garage.

Kevin, Gwen, and Ben had been waiting on Donny for around five minutes. During that time, Ben had filled his companions in about Mrs. Dominico's call – and her temper. So when she arrived, the couple was ready with their questions.

Before she had even managed to get all the way off of Bane, Kevin hit Donny with the first question. "So what'd your mom do?"

Donny shot Ben a dirty look. "Grounded me for eternity. Or until she thinks she can trust me again."

"If you're grounded, what are you doing back here?" Gwen got the feeling that Donny and Kevin shared a few personality traits.

"I'm going into space with you guys, duh," the blonde answered matter-of-factly.

"Nice, Donny," Kevin grinned. "If I remember your mom right, she'll kill you when you get home."

Donny turned pink. "Uh-huh. Good thing she can't call me in space."

"Speaking of," Gwen interrupted. "Where's Julie with Ship?"

Ben opened his mouth to tell her that she was on her way when the small Asian-American girl walked into the garage, her pet in her arms. Bane moseyed over to give the strange new creature a good long sniff.

"Hi guys," she greeted, giving the very large creature before her a wary look.

"Hey Julie," Ben answered. "That's Bane. I don't think he bites."

Julie looked skeptical; Bane wandered back to the other side of the garage and sat down.

The other three occupants of the garage chorused a quiet, "Hi."

"Thanks for letting us borrow Ship," Ben walked over to his girlfriend, who put her little mechamorph on the ground and gave him a small hug.

"No problem. Ship loves space travel, don't you, boy?" She tickled his head, right around where his ears would be if he were a dog. He wiggled his bottom like a happy puppy.

"Aw, he's so cute," Donny was reminded vaguely of Bane the baby. Except that he had been bigger.

Julie smiled. "Thanks. Um, and who are you?"

"Oh, right, sorry. I'm Donny. I knew Kevin forever ago," she explained. "Bane's my dog."

"Nice meeting you," she replied. She really couldn't comment in the area of weird dogs, so she let that subject drop. "Sorry guys, but I've gotta go. My parents want to go to the movies tonight as a family, so I'm supposed to hurry back."

Ben gave her a light kiss on the cheek. "'Bye Julie, have fun. Thanks again for Ship."

"'Bye," she waved back at them before getting on her moped and speeding away.

Gwen leaned over and picked up Ship; then she headed out into the driveway. Kevin was the first to follow after her, and Donny brought up the rear when she realized what was going on.

Kevin looked at the small alien in his girlfriends arms. "Okay, Ship, you ready for space again?"

Ship made a couple of funny noises, and then leapt out of Gwen's grip. Halfway through his jump, he got a whole lot bigger and became a space ship. Bane had another sniff of him.

"Holy crap!" Donny exclaimed. "That's awesome!" She turned to beam her awe at Kevin, who was totally unaffected by the whole thing.

"He's great isn't he?" Ben seemed to think that this was a reflection of his owner.

Ship lowered what Donny decided to call the gangplank because she knew more pirate ship words than space ship words. Then, to her great delight, they got to go inside of Ship.

Kevin sat himself in the pilot's seat (although Ship liked to do the driving a lot of the time), Gwen sat navigator, and Ben and Donny simply sat. Bane gave the room an uneasy once-over before lying down against the back wall.

The interior was entirely black with Ship's unusual pattern covering every available surface. Donny noticed that yet again, the vehicle color coordinated with Ben. Somewhere in her head, she was glad she'd brought her red jacket. She'd have never found the black one.

"Ready for takeoff?" Kevin grinned back at his passengers.

"Yep," Donny answered. "Ready as I'll ever be."

"We're good up here," Gwen added, looking at her controls.

Ben was looking a bit blank. All of a sudden, he jumped up out of his seat and started yelling. "YOU GUYS! I FORGOT TO GET A SMOOTHIE BEFORE WE LEFT! WE HAVE TO GO TO MR. SMOOTHIE!"

The older boy simply shot him a dirty look and said, "Sit down and shut up, Benji. We're taking off."

The smaller brunette practically deflated. He plopped back into his seat, buckled up, and pouted. Donny buckled up like she'd watched him do, and seconds later she felt Ship lift off. Her mouth gaped open a little as she watched the garage and then the city drop away below them.

Either space travel was easy, or Kevin was a great pilot because the exit from Earth's atmosphere went almost without a single bump. Donny's mouth remained hanging open until the sky turned black and the stars began glittering around Earth as they floated away from their home planet.

"You can close your mouth now, the fun part's over," Kevin teased over his shoulder. Her mouth snapped shut and she graced him with an indignant glare. He laughed, and then told her she could take her seatbelt off and walk around if she wanted to.

She unclipped her belt and walked up to the front, where Gwen was finishing up with putting in the coordinates for the dragons' planet.

Out the front, Donny could see some of the other planets in the solar system: Mars, Jupiter – even Saturn in the distance. It then occurred to her that they were going very slowly.

"Um, how long will it take us to get there?" she looked at Gwen, who caught on to her train of thought.

"In about half an hour, we'll be far enough away from Earth to go into light speed. The trip will take about eight hours from there. The dragons' home planet is in the Milky Way galaxy, so the trip is a lot shorter this time," Gwen smiled apologetically. She doubted Ben or Kevin had bothered to explain that to her, and this was the first time the two girls had actually gotten the chance to talk to each other.

"Oh, man," Donny furrowed her eyebrows. Nine-ish hours there and back, plus whatever time it took to conduct their business on the planet equals…? Not good, in her mother's timetable, probably. Poop, she was gonna die when she got home.

"So," Gwen decided to change the subject, "How long have you known Kevin?"

The other girl looked down at her. "Forever; or I guess I should say since I was born. Our moms were friends, and when his mom met his dad, they introduced my mom to one of Devin's plumber friends. Our moms got pregnant within two months of each other, and Kevin is older than me. We've been hanging out since before we could walk."

"Wow. I met Kevin when I was ten and he was evil," Gwen thought back to that summer, when she and Ben and Grandpa had fought the monster that was Kevin.

"He left me sitting outside a candy shop to go get bubblegum machine quarters and never came back," This was obviously a sore subject.

Kevin chose this moment to join the conversation. "And you gave me a shiner, so we're even."

Donny did a very childish thing and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Kevin, we are having a girl to girl discussion," Gwen told him.

"About me," he added.

"Right. Now go away," Donny finished for them. Then she shooed him.

He left, but not without putting on a hurt face.

Donny turned back to the redhead she'd been talking to before Kevin's rude interruption. "How long have you and Kevin been dating?"

Gwen flushed a little (which Kevin, who was watching from across the small room, thought was adorable) and said, "Almost a year. But we've been hanging out for two years, ever since the whole Highbreed thing."

"Which would be when you turned Kevin good?" Donny propped up on the control board, careful not to touch any buttons or switches.

"Yeah," Gwen nodded.

The two girls spent the next twenty minutes or so discussing whatever they could think to discuss about Kevin and boys in general. Gwen spent a little while complaining about Ben, which Donny could connect to, seeing as she'd gained a younger brother since Kevin had left. As it turned out, Ben had a lot in common with Charlie the five-year-old.

They were surprised when Kevin interrupted them to tell them to get ready for the jump to light speed.

Gwen buckled back up in her seat as Donny dashed back to join Ben. She plopped back into her seat and clicked the seatbelt into place.

She looked over at Ben, who was no longer pouting. "What have you been doing?"

"Getting to know Bane," he answered.

Before she could follow that new tangent, Kevin declared that they were ready for the jump. Donny braced herself; she was expecting it to be like it was in the movies, where your cheeks flapped back from your face. It turned out to be more like the start of a roller coaster. The ship lurched forward, and then it was like nothing had happened. Unless of course you looked out the window; then you could see the stars streaking by in long, thin, white stripes.

The next eight hours would be really, really boring.

**I have nothing to say to you people.**

**Except… REVIEW! Or it'll be another month before I update! Rarr!**


	8. Drakkopyra

**Okay, so I wish I had a good excuse for the late update, but I don't. So there. I don't even start school 'til Monday.**

**I went back and watched the episode "Be-Knighted" to see if there was anything I needed to know about the dragons, but there weren't any names in there for them. So I'm making them up. If you find out that there are technical names, let me know and I'll change them so that they're right.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10. If I did, we wouldn't have to wait until October for a new episode.**

Seven and a half hours after take-off, Donny was sound asleep in the back of the room, propped against a large furry pillow named Bane. She was awakened by an incessant poking in her side, courtesy of Ben. Slitting one hazel eye open, she glared daggers at the younger teen.

"It's time to wake up! We're almost there," he smiled and ignored the hateful look she gave him.

"Why? How much longer do we have?" Donny glanced at the stars still streaking by them at light speed.

"About half an hour," Ben answered, "We've gotta come out of light speed."

"Then why am I awake?" she sat up and stretched.

"'Cause you have to buckle in to change speeds," Kevin answered before Ben could. "Just get up, okay?"

"Okay," Donny took her sweet time groggily walking over to her seat and buckling in. "Go ahead."

Kevin hit a few of the controls and Ship's passengers all lurched forward in their seats, like people do when someone slams the brakes of a car. The stars outside stopped streaking and became the dots of light Donny was used to seeing. Ahead of them in the distance was a large green planet with white clouds swirling across its surface. Surrounding the planet were what appeared to be tiny fragments of metal. Beyond that planet, Donny could see two others, one a hunk of red-brown rock, the other a swirling mass of blue and purple. The solar system's sun was a bright orange, unlike their yellow sun back home.

"Um," Donny furrowed her eyebrows, "Are we gonna be able to breathe on that planet?"

"Probably," Gwen answered. "The dragon was able to breathe on Earth, so I assume that the atmospheres are similar."

"Maybe the dragon breathes nitrogen gas, though instead of oxygen. Won't we suffocate? Or did someone think ahead and bring space suits?" This was something she hadn't thought about, and now it was worrying her. Of course, she could always port back home.

"Don't worry, we've got suits. The Plumbers hardly let you leave the planet without them," Ben assured her.

"Good then," she nodded. "Now that I'm awake, do you guys have some sort of plan?"

"Not really," Kevin shrugged, "But we usually don't."

"That's stupid," she informed him.

"Donny is right, Kevin. We need to think this through. The dragons won't be happy to see the Knights. Especially if the mapmaker told them what happened to him." Gwen was trying to come up with a good way to handle the situation once they landed. "And they may not want our help. After all, the one dragon we've met wasn't too open to our input."

"That's true," Ben looked at his cousin, "And we still don't know if the Forever Knights are even here yet."

"Yes we do," Kevin cut in. He pointed at what had originally looked like metal orbiting the green planet. It was now obvious that what they were looking at was an armada of starships. "They definitely beat us here."

"Whoa," Donny's mouth formed a perfect 'O' of astonishment. "How are we gonna fight that many ships?"

"We'll be working with the dragons. If they don't shoot us out of the sky when we try to land," Kevin didn't sound too hopeful.

The only thing they could do for the next fifteen minutes was wait and see what happened. Donny sat in her seat and stared at Milo's black army boots, contemplating their imminent doom. Out of habit, she opened a small vortex to her right (the region near Ben's head) and reached through to her fridge at home. She felt around until she found the grape soda she'd been looking for, but when she tried to pull it out, a hand grabbed hers. Her mother's hand, most likely. She screamed, jumped and yanked her hand back, managing to escape with her drink.

"_I_ just saw you scream and pull a soda out of Ben's ear. What happened?" Gwen was watching her.

"My mom grabbed my hand when it was in the fridge," she popped the can open. "It nearly scared me to death."

"Uh-huh," Kevin grinned. "_That_ was stupid."

"Yes it was," the blond didn't try to fight that one. It was a really dumb move, but the soda was worth it.

Kevin turned back around to the front. "Everybody buckle in again, we're gonna try to land."

The other three teens did as told.

They had barely begun to enter the planet's atmosphere when a small screen on the dash flared to life, showing the head of what was obviously one of the dragons. The alien's yellow eyes narrowed at the redhead it could see on the other side of the screen, "Who are you? And what makes you think you can just barge into Drakkopyrinian territory?"

Gwen smiled nervously at the screen. "We're with the Plumbers. They sent us to help out with the Forever Knights."

"All right, fine. We'll send an escort for you. That ship will lead you to the capitol city of Luestara. We will speak more when I see you there," the dragon sounded skeptical, like he wasn't sure he could trust them.

"Thank you," Gwen watched as the dragon nodded at her, then signed off.

Once they had safely entered the atmosphere, Ship stopped and hovered above the forest below them. The trees – or the tree equivalents – had leaves in different shades of blue and green, and some of the taller trees sported bright yellow flowers. The lake they could see in the distance was purple; a reflection of the lavender sky, Donny noticed.

It wasn't long before two small golden ships appeared in the distance. The screen on the dash flared up again, and another dragon's face appeared in front of Gwen. "We are your escort," the dragon told her, "Please follow us back to Luestara." Then he signed off.

The two ships pulled up on either side of Ship, and they then led the way to the Drakkopyrinian capitol city.

The city showed up on the horizon long before they arrived in it. It was built of a golden, metallic element that apparently only existed on Drakkopyra. The buildings were skyscrapers that fulfilled their definition; they were tall enough that some of them had thick white clouds twirling around their spires. When they got closer, they could see the city's inhabitants flying from tower to tower.

"Oh," Gwen looked out at the city, "It's beautiful!"

"Yeah," Donny agreed. "I've never seen anything like this; it's amazing!"

"It's nice," Ben had no appreciation for architecture.

Kevin was not going to be impressed until he saw dragon cars.

The two smaller ships veered off to the side, and Ship followed them to a landing pad atop one of the smaller skyscrapers. Once they had landed and disembarked, Ship turned back into his natural form. The little mechamorph then went to Ben, who told him he was a good boy and scratched his head. Bane stuck his big wet nose on the back of Donny's neck, looking for some loving for him. Donny reached back and scratched his ears too, curing his jealousy.

The dragons that exited the two small ships nodded to them and began to lead them into the building. The doors that led off of the landing pad were decorated with what looked like an insignia; it featured a stylized dragon and some kind of swirled fire-like shape. The doors opened inward, revealing two shorter dragons within the opening.

Inside the skyscrapers, the amazing architecture continued. Everything was dragon-sized, of course, but the metallic silver hallway was covered in deep red accents and heavy wooden (a grey color on this planet) furniture pieces. There were landscapes hung on the walls every here and there, and Donny got a good feeling that the Drakkopyrinians weren't killing their planet like the humans were. She got glimpses of yellow, sandy beaches and vast blue-grey forests.

They were led up a flight of stairs (which they nearly had to climb) to a large set of golden doors, once again emblazoned with the strange insignia. Their escorts opened the doors, nodding their long necks as the four teens and their alien companions passed through the entryway. Within the room beyond there was a large desk, behind which the dragon that had sent their escorts perched on a large bench.

He moved from his seat when they entered the room, and lowered his head until he was eye level with Ben. "I am Talmund, king of Drakkopyra. Morgead has told me much about you, Ben Tennyson."

The brunette looked a bit uneasy with the large lizard in his face.

"He tells me that you did not want him to stop the Forever Knights when he had the chance on Earth. Now they are orbiting our planet, waiting until their entire armada arrives before they attack. And you have the gall to offer us your assistance?" Talmund slit his eyes into glowing yellow half-moons.

"Um," Ben was rightfully nervous. "I'm sorry about that. It's just that I usually don't approve of killing people. And I didn't know at the time that they would launch into space and come after all of you."

A low growl emitted from the dragon's throat. "We will see what you have to offer. If I find that your help is not needed, you and your friends are to return to your rotten rock of a planet."

All four teens nodded in unison. Talmund then sent them to their rooms to await their next summons.


	9. Prove Your Worth

**What? An update in less than two weeks? Who is this person and what has she done with the author? It's so unusual for me to update at a not-ridiculous interval.**

**LOL, I totally forgot to put an Author's Note at the bottom of Chapter 8. It's okay though, I'm sure you guys knew what to do. **

**I started school Monday. It isn't as sucky as I thought it was going to be. I have friends in every class except Food, Nutrition, and Wellness. It's funny I'm in there 'cause I only make cake and pie. Plus I made a new friend today.**

**But you people don't wanna hear me ramble on, do you? ON TO THE STORY!**

**Disclaimer: MOA owns Ben 10. I own Donny and the names of the dragons and their planet and the servants.**

The rooms King Talmund sent them to were built for dragon-sized guests. The beds were very, very large, and so was the bathroom. They were as ornately decorated as the rest of the building had been; the walls and furniture matched the deep red and gold theme of the rest of the palace – which was where Donny supposed they were.

Ben and Kevin shared one room, and Donny and Gwen shared another one. Bane got to stay in bed with the girls, something he hadn't done since puppyhood. Needless to say, he was thrilled.

They had barely been shown to their new rooms when dinner was served. Each pair received a tray of strange meats and greens via room service. The creatures that served them were definitely not dragons, though. They were much smaller (but still larger than the average football player), and their skin was a light orange color. They stood on two thin, bird-like legs and sported bright red and yellow feathers in the place of hair. Their faces were slight and angular, and their ears pointed and ended in a small plume of feathers; their backs were home to a translucent pair of faerie wings. Each one wore a loose-fitting robe in warm tones.

Once the unusual servers had left, the group gathered in the boys' room to see what they could make of the bizarre food.

Gwen floated her and Donny's tray into the guys' room and let it down next to their tray.

"So what do you guys think?" Donny looked from face to face.

"I think that one looks like giant chicken," Ben pointed to one of the meats.

Donny shot him a look, "I meant the political situation, not the edible one."

"Oh," he looked a little disappointed. "I think that Talmund doesn't trust us enough to let us help."

"No crap, Ben," Kevin started, "I'm pretty sure that whatever they think of us has something to do with the fact that we're from the same planet as the Knights. Plus whatever that mapmaker had to say about us running him off before he could carry out his revenge plan."

"Kevin's right. We'll have to convey to the king that we aren't the enemy," Gwen poked at a suspicious-looking little blue plant. "Which means that we need to use our heads this time, not just go crashing into everything we do."

Donny nodded, "Yep, and I don't think that thing on Ben's wrist carries much weight around here." She waved a piece of grey meat in front of Bane's nose, and when he ate it in one bite she decided that one was safe to try. It tasted a bit like fish, but it was also sort of citrus-y. She decided to pretend that was seasoning and eat it anyway.

Gwen got brave enough to try the blue plant. She put a bite in her mouth, chewed a couple of seconds, and spit it out. "Eeeew, it tastes like earwax."

"And you know this because…?" Kevin grinned at her. Then he tried it himself, only to achieve the same result. "Yuck, it does taste like earwax."

"And how do you know?" his girlfriend teased from across the 'table.'

Donny held up her grey meat discovery, "This one's tasty. Like fish and lemon and orange."

All three of the others grabbed a bite of what she'd shown them.

The rest of what they ate was determined by seeing if Bane would eat it before trying it themselves. Kevin discovered a love of a juicy red meat that melted in your mouth. Since talking about their Drakkopyrinian reputations was getting them nowhere fast, the four of them decided to hit the sack and did their best to get ready for bed in their oversized rooms.

They were summoned before sunup the next morning. The dark violet sky was just beginning to get an orange glow on the horizon when they all stood before Talmund for the second time.

The dragon king looked down at the four of them before speaking. His yellow eyes were slit, whether with distaste or deep thought, no one knew.

"I wish to see what each of you is capable of," he began. "I don't want to add you to my number if you will only be a burden, although I do recognize the Plumbers' authority. We will go out into the young dragons' training field after morning meal and see what powers you possess."

Breakfast didn't last long and consisted of a pinkish scrambled egg of some sort.

Afterword, the two dragons from the day before led them out into the street at ground level and marched them two towers down, where they went straight through the doors to the other side of the building. The area on the other side was home to a jumbo-sized military training course built of the oddly colored wood they had seen the day before. By the time everyone was present and accounted for, the sun was beating down on them, making Donny glad she'd worn a tank top.

Talmund turned to address the Alien Force (plus one), "Now you will show me what you have to offer to my army. Since you appear to be the leader, Ben Tennyson, you will go first. Feel free to use any of the equipment provided."

"Thank you," Ben strode forward and turned to face the dragons. With no jacket on in the heat, his Ultimatrix was ready for display when he held up his arm and turned the dial until a tiny green Way Big hovered over the watch. Then he ceremoniously slapped his other hand down on it as hard as he could. With an enormous flash of green light, he transformed into the red and white alien. "WAAAAY BIG!"

"Waaaay big ego," Gwen muttered. The other two grinned.

For the next few minutes they all stood and watched Ben turn into different aliens. He was interrupted in the middle of his show by the Ultimatrix turning yellow and returning him to human form. A mechanical voice proclaimed, "New DNA detected. Scanning new DNA."

The nearest dragon watched in astonishment as the watch shot a yellow light at him and scanned him over. Donny watched with interest, but the other two were used to this goings on.

Ben watched his wrist as the Ultimatrix changed back to being green. Then he turned the dial until a dragon floated above his wrist and slapped down again. This time when the light dimmed, there stood before them a dragon the same bright green as Ben's eyes. He looked himself over before saying, "What should I call this one?"

None of his friends said anything for fear of offending their hosts.

"Very well," Talmund sounded bored. "I can use your ability and your knowledge of the Knights. The red-haired girl can go next."

Gwen looked at the dragon king. "I'm part Anodite. I can use the same powers as they can." She showed him a glowing pink hand for proof.

He did the equivalent of raising an eyebrow, "The Anodites are a strong people. You seem to have a good mind as well. Let's see the other female."

Donny wasn't too used to this 'prove your worth' thing. She opened a small portal below her feet and dropped into it. This put her in the in-between world; surrounding her was a blurred, red-and-violet tinted image of the real world, frozen in time. Now she had to choose where to reappear. She ended up choosing a place on top of one of the pieces of equipment. She sat on top of it and 'ported herself back. She looked at the group still standing at the building's wall, "Um, ta-da?"

Bane wagged his barbed tail and started to bound over to her, but she caught him mid-jump and sent him back to the wall. "Stay put," she told him, then transported herself over next to him.

"Interesting. Now the other man," Talmund indicated Kevin.

He walked over to the outside of the golden tower and laid both of his hands on the wall, absorbing the metal using it to cover his entire body in armor. Then he turned one hand into a blade and the other into a hammer, "I'm half Osmosian."

The only thing Donny learned here was that Kevin made a very shiny gold man, which led to her picturing him on top of one of those celebrity awards. That made her smile and it took all of her strength not to laugh. Gwen and Ben (no longer a dragon) gave her quizzical looks.

Kevin let the armor drop as Talmund inclined his long neck in thought. He finally looked at them with his big yellow eyes, "I have decided that I can use your help with the Forever Knights. Ben should meet with me and my generals at the war meeting this afternoon. The rest of you may explore the city during that time. Until then, I ask that you return to your quarters at the palace, where you will be served your midday meal."

He waited until the four teens realized they were supposed to say "Thank you your Majesty" before turning and flying back to his palace. Once the king was gone, their escorts led them back to the tower (like they couldn't remember it was two doors down?). The strange feathered creatures served them lunch, and the four of them sat in the girls' room and talked.

"So Ben," Gwen started, "Do you have any idea what to do in a war meeting?"

"Yes, I do. There was one on Sumo Slammers the other day," he looked totally serious when he said it, too.

The other three just looked at him for a minute.

"I saw that episode," Donny commented. "But really, you've done this sort of thing before, right?"

"We've done them as a team," Gwen told her.

"Yeah, but you do most of the talking," Kevin reminded her. "And I doubt Benji listens enough to know what to say."

Hearing his name, Ben looked at his friend, "What?"

Donny could have face palmed. "Talmund is going to kick us off of the planet 'cause of you being stupid."

Kevin snorted. Ben looked hurt. Before the brunette could defend himself, however, one of the feathered servants came to the door.

"Pardon me, but King Talmund has requested the presence of Ben Tennyson at the war meeting," she (apparently, based on her voice) held the door open until Ben exited the room. "Aradia will be along in a few minutes to give the rest of you a tour of Luestara."

When Ben left, Kevin turned to the girls. "So who thinks Ben'll get us kicked off?"

Donny raised her hand.

"Don't be so mean, Kevin," Gwen chided. "Ben can use his brain when he needs to. The only thing I'm worried about is the time frame we're dealing with. The Forever Knights could attack at any moment."

"Yeah," Kevin began to say something when a second knock was heard at the door, and it opened without anyone answering.

"Hello! My name is Aradia. I'm here to show you around Luestara," another one of the feathered creatures marched into the room. Unlike the others, her skin and feathers were various shades of green. She smiled from tufted ear to tufted ear, revealing a row of pointed teeth. "Please come with me now."

The three teens looked at each other and then stood up.

"You can leave your alien here," she nodded towards Bane. "Now how many of you can fly?"

**Look, lots of words in that one! I've been working on this chapter for three days. 'Cause of school. I'm gonna try to write whenever I don't have homework, so maybe I'll have a structured schedule now. Possibly. Prolly not though. I don't know, really.**

**Anyways, REVIEW! Maybe it'll inspire me!**

**And go vote on my poll! It's about what I wanna write next. Plus, if nobody votes on my poll, I won't update this story.**


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